Weekly Review: July 8, 2017

In the interest of full disclosure, One Mile At A Time earns a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through some of the below links. These are the best publicly available offers that we have found for each card. Please check out our advertiser policy for further details about the partners we work with. Thanks for your support!

This has been a week of recovery for me. After spending almost all of June outside the US, I’m catching up on rest this week before continuing on my next adventure next week (I’ll have more on that shortly).

On the miles & points and airline front this has been a fairly slow week, given that July 4 was on Tuesday. We saw a new bonus on the IHG Card, a crazy incident on a Delta flight, LOT announcing flights between Budapest and the US, and more.

With that out of the way, here’s a recap of this week on the blog:

Featured Stories

Back in 2015 I wrote a post with what I consider to be the world’s best first class airline products. An updated version of this is long overdue, especially now that I’ve flown a couple of new first class products. The reason I hadn’t written an updated review yet is because I hadn’t flown Air France’s new 777-300ER La Premiere. Now that I have, I think I can safely say that I’ve flown every one of the world’s best first class products.

However, I’m going to make this post a bit different. Soon I hope to publish my actual list ranking the world’s top 10 first class product, but in this post I want to share which airline I consider to be the best in each of 10 categories. This is taking inspiration from the way Skytrax does ratings, as they rate the best airline in a bunch of categories.

The card is offering a sign-up bonus of 80,000 IHG Rewards Club points after spending $1,000 on the card within the first three months. On top of that, you can get 5,000 bonus points if you add an authorized user and have them make a purchase within the same timeframe. The card has a $49 annual fee, which is waived the first year.

Second of all, the funny thing is that I had already flown the Jet Airways first class product three times on other airlines. Jet Airways used to lease their planes out to other airlines, so I’ve flown the actual product already on Turkish, Thai, and Etihad.

Yesterday I wrote about the situation that unfolded on Thursday's flight DL129 from Seattle to Beijing. Someone seated in business class (who was the son of an employee) clearly lost it and was on something, and tried to open the emergency exit. While…

June was a crazy month of travel for me. I just wrapped up my the trip report covering my experience in Saudia first class, Jet Airways first class, and Tunisair business class, and this trip came right after that. I arrived in Montreal from my previous…

More from One Mile at a Time

Hello from Mexico City! After spending a few days on Easter Island, we're now spending some time in Mexico City, which is my first time actually visiting the city in over a decade. We're having a great time, and the food has been outstanding. This really…

Hello from Mexico City! This past week I took a few flights within North America, and I'm shortly headed to Easter Island, which I'm really looking forward to, as it's my first time. On the travel and points front, this week we learned about huge new…

Hello from Los Angeles! This past week I returned from an amazing trip to Israel with my parents (more on that soon). I’ve been spending a few days on the ground recovering (for once I actually have a bit of jetlag, since I spent a significant…

Hello from Israel! I've been here since Monday and have had an incredible time. This is a very different type of trip than I usually take. While my travels usually have me on a plane every other day, we've been spending 10 hours a day exploring the country…

Earlier in the week I returned from a crazy mileage run, and now I'm headed to Israel with my mom for the next week. I can't wait to fly the EL AL 787 and spend a week exploring Israel. Stay tuned for lots of updates. On the points & travel front, this…

Hello from somewhere in the sky! I'm presently on a crazy, week-long mileage run. There's nowhere I'd rather be than in the sky, so personally I'm loving it, though Ford feels differently. I dragged him along for this, and I'm quickly learning that normal…

About luckyBen Schlappig (aka Lucky) is a travel consultant, blogger, and avid points collector.
He travels about 400,000 miles a year, primarily using miles and points to fund his first class experiences.
He chronicles his adventures, along with industry news, here at One Mile At A Time.

Recent Trip Reports

I boarded through door L2, where I was greeted by the inflight service manager. Since I was first onboard, I snapped some pictures of the business class cabin. While EL AL's 787s features gorgeous new business class seats, the 777 is outdated. Business…

In the last installment I reviewed EL AL's first class lounge at Ben Gurion Airport, which I had access to since I was in first class. However, I also briefly checked out EL AL's business class lounge. The business class section of the lounge is also…

The morning of my flight to London I got a phone call from EL AL asking if I wanted a car to the airport. I didn't realize this was something that was available on award tickets, though based on looking at the terms on EL AL's website it appears like…

It's not often that I write about destinations, though since I spent a week on the ground in Israel I wanted to briefly share my thoughts. This is easily one of the most incredible trips I've taken, and I'm so fortunate to have been able to share the…

Recent Posts

A lot of changes have been made to the American AAdvantage program the past couple of years, and almost none of the changes have been positive. I'm doing what I can to make the best of the new program, and I figured I'd share how I've been doing better…

I boarded through door L2, where I was greeted by the inflight service manager. Since I was first onboard, I snapped some pictures of the business class cabin. While EL AL's 787s features gorgeous new business class seats, the 777 is outdated. Business…

In the last installment I reviewed EL AL's first class lounge at Ben Gurion Airport, which I had access to since I was in first class. However, I also briefly checked out EL AL's business class lounge. The business class section of the lounge is also…

As much as I love Thailand, there's no denying that Bangkok brings out the crazy in people. This was even the concept for a show a couple of years back, which was called "The Airport Of Smiles: Bangkok Airport." I'm not sure that name really summed up…

Meet The Team

One Mile at a Time is owned by PointsPros, Inc. This site is for entertainment purposes only. The owner of this site is not an investment advisor, financial planner, nor legal or tax professional and articles here are of an opinion and general nature and should not be relied upon for individual circumstances.

Advertiser Disclosure: Some links to credit cards and other products on this website will earn an affiliate commission. Outside of banner ads published through the Boarding Area network, this compensation does not impact how and where products appear on this site. While we do try to list all the best miles and points deals, the site does not include all card companies or credit card offers available in the marketplace. Please view our advertising policy page for additional details about our partners.

Editorial Disclosure: The editorial content on this page is not provided by any entity mentioned herein. Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.